Yeah, that's me, from about twenty years ago.
About a year ago I entered what was at that time the New Converts class at Liberty Baptist church. I wasn't a new convert, in fact, I had been saved for twenty years, but I had fallen to the same thing that claims so many young Christians between the ages of 18-27.
Out of school, out of the house, a job, attending college part time, no longer under the watchful eyes of my parents, I fell not to drugs or alcohol, but rather to indifference.
That slow drifting away as things in the world take on greater importance in your mind than the things of God.
For twelve years I wasted my life, not serving God, not growing in my walk with Him, thinking all the while that I was okay.
Part of the problem was that I had never really been discipled by anyone, shown the way of the Christian walk. To say that my Bible knowledge wasn't here it should have been is an understatement.
Through the circumstances of my wife's infidelity and the subsequent humbling of my heart I had found myself at Liberty. The thing I felt that first day, that I was at home.
It was a few months before I started attending Sunday School, the men's class.
I was out of my element. The men in the class had grown in their knowledge over the years. They were on the same wavelength, I was on an island trying to get as much Bible in me as I could to try and keep up, but it wasn't happening quickly enough, so I spoke with the Pastor and entered the new converts class.
Even though I wasn't a new convert that's where my level of understanding was. I was still on spiritual milk, not yet ready for meat.
I prayed out loud at church for the first time in that class. I learned how to study the Bible, I learned what it meant to disciple someone from the teacher, Bro. Howard.
The class then became the Brothers and Sisters in Christ class, that is BASIC.
Bro. Barry led the class, he was a good teacher too, and under his time as teacher I received my first opportunity to lead the class.
It has been a year since I joined the Sunday School class, realizing my limitations at that time. A year and a half since I started attending the church.
I have been attending the Grace Bible Institute for the last three months with plans to become a preacher. My study library has grown from just one Bible, to four Bibles and twenty other reference books.
I tell all that to tell you this, in those twelve years I as out of church I looked for meaning in life, I wondered what life would hold for me. Nothing in the world ever fulfilled me the way serving God does.
Nothing in those twelve years made me feel as good as getting the new attendance book last Sunday morning and seeing my name listed as teacher, and thinking about how far God has brought me in a year, and the responsibility I have now been given.
I think about our theme for this year, from Psalm 78:6 That the generation to come might know...
It is my duty to make sure every person that comes through the college and careers class walks out of there with the knowledge that only God can give, and the ability to serve in whatever capacity God has called them to serve in. To disciple them, to ensure that the generation to come knows and does not fall into indifference like I did. To prepare them for a future that is waiting for the contributions they will make.
To prepare them for the generation to come after them that will need someone to show them the way.
If you are looking for a church home in the York, SC area, I encourage you to check out Liberty Baptist Church located at 475 S. Shiloh Rd. The website is www.Experienceliberty.org
